Four Greeley residents on Friday challenged the legality of a citizen-initiated petition that could derail the city’s financing plan for a $1.1 billion entertainment district on the city’s western edge.
The 22-page protest, filed with the office of Greeley city clerk Heidi Leatherwood, called the proposed ballot measure “fundamentally unconstitutional,” contending that under state law an administrative decision by an elected body cannot be reversed by voters.
Former Greeley city manager Leonard Wiest, along with Tom Hacker, John DeWitt and Zach Bliven, filed the protest Friday afternoon against the two co-chairs of citizens group Greeley Deserves Better, Pam Bricker and Dan Wheeler.
Greeley Deserves Better on Wednesday turned in petitions that it said contained 8,993 signatures of registered voters to put a question on the Nov. 4 municipal ballot that, if passed, would repeal the ordinance approved May 6 by the Greeley City Council, which authorizes a financing plan for the entertainment district dubbed “Catalyst” on city-owned land near Weld County Road 17 and U.S. Highway 34 that would include an ice arena, hotel and water park and anchor Windsor-based developer Martin Lind’s proposed Cascadia mixed-use development.
Leatherwood’s office would need to certify that the petitions contain at least 4,568 valid signatures from registered voters residing in Greeley — “equal to 10% of the total vote cast in the last general election,” according to the city’s code — to either place the issue on the November ballot or force the City Council to repeal the ordinance.
However, the protest filed with the city clerk contends that the ballot issue “seeks to exercise administrative control over the executive functions of the City, and in doing so, it travels well outside the legislative power that is reserved to the people in the Colorado Constitution and the Greeley Home Rule Charter.”
According to the protest, “longstanding case law dictates that the power to initiate legislation through the ballot box is reserved solely for legislative enactments, not administrative actions. There can be no doubt here that the proposed initiative is administrative in nature because the underlying administrative provisions of the ordinance targeted for repeal … dealt specifically and in painstaking detail with administrative implementation of a policy decision the City Council had already approved” in April.
“Because it is an administrative measure,” the protest continued, the proposed initiative “may not constitutionally be referred to or ultimately enacted by voters. Voter initiatives may only be used to enact legislative ordinances, not administrative actions. Moreover, because there is a legal presumption that an initiative to amend or repeal a prior administrative action is itself administrative in nature, it is the proponents of this ballot measure who must shoulder the burden of proving that their proposed initiative is legislative rather than administrative.”
DeWitt, a real estate broker, told BizWest Friday afternoon that “as proud Greeley residents, we filed this complaint because the so-called citizens initiative isn’t about policy. It’s an unconstitutional attempt to micromanage City Hall. Greeley Deserves Better knows it, and they’re hoping voters won’t notice.”
Wiest worked for the City of Greeley for 35 years, according to articles in the Greeley Tribune, including as finance director, assistant city manager and city manager. He retired from the city in 2005, taking subsequent roles with Lind’s Water Valley Co., where he worked from 2005 to 2013, and the Town of Milliken.
Hacker told BizWest that he has been “watching it from a distance, and I set my thinking against the backdrop of all of the years that Greeley had chances to move ahead, with Anheuser-Busch, with I-25, its failure to really move to retain Hewlett-Packard in Greeley, lots of missed opportunities, and this seemed to me like a chance for Greeley to recoup some of that.”
Hacker had been a reporter for the Greeley Tribune, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Loveland Reporter-Herald and the Northern Colorado Business Report, which was merged in 2014 with the Boulder County Business Report to become BizWest. He also had worked in public relations for the City of Loveland and its police department.
“The other thing that drew me into this, frankly, is just the arrogance of the opposition,” Hacker said. He read the BizWest story “about how they refuse to pull the veil off this polling tactic that was put to work,” he said, “and, you know, we’ve all seen push polls. We know how they work, and I think that they’re hiding that. And it’s too bad.”
Bliven, who could not be reached for comment in time for BizWest’s afternoon deadline, is the owner and operator of Bliven 19 Ltd., which owns a small fleet of trucks used in the crude-oil industry.
According to the city’s code as quoted in the complaint, “the city clerk must fix a time for a hearing on the election protest, with the hearing to be concluded no later than 25 days after the filing date of the petition with the city clerk, and that not later than five days after the hearing, the hearing officer must issue a written decision on the sufficiency of the petition.”
In a statement emailed to BizWest late Friday, the Greeley Deserves Better campaign responded to what it called “misleading claims” made in the complaint “filed by supporters of the risky billion-dollar Cascadia financing scheme. The complaint represents a desperate attempt to distract from the overwhelming opposition to a deal that puts Greeley taxpayers at unlimited financial risk while guaranteeing millions in profits to a private developer.”
In the Greeley Deserves Better news release, Wheeler said that “this week, Greeley voters delivered a loud and clear message in opposition to the risky Cascadia funding scheme by providing a record-smashing 9,000 petition signatures to give Greeley voters the opportunity to repeal the risky scheme this November. Rather than address why 87% of informed voters oppose their risky financing scheme, project supporters are manufacturing distractions.”
“Let me be crystal clear,” Wheeler said in the prepared statement. “An army of volunteers engaged in the effort to repeal Ordinance 2025-15. Greeley Deserves Better, consisting entirely of and wholly funded by Greeley residents, operated alone and did not coordinate efforts with any other advocacy groups. Our signature gathering was conducted by our incredible volunteer team of over 50 Greeley residents, supplemented by professional services from The Field Group, a legitimate professional signature-gathering firm.
“The real issue remains unchanged: this deal puts over $1 billion in risk on taxpayers while guaranteeing the developer millions in profits every year regardless of project success,” Wheeler wrote. “Greeley deserves better than a financing scheme that puts all the risk on the public while guaranteeing profits for a private developer.”
In the news release, Suzanne Taheri of Denver-based West Group Law + Policy, the campaign’s attorney and a former Colorado deputy secretary of state, noted that “this complaint was filed by a group hastily formed just this week and is transparently political. Allies of the city council are panicked and have launched a desperate attack designed to mislead voters and distract from the groundswell of opposition to the council’s risky Cascadia funding scheme, evidenced by this week’s record-smashing petition submission.”
Reached Friday afternoon, Bricker said she wouldn’t comment on the protest, but added that “I have a team that did a great job.”
Bricker, former head of Greeley’s Downtown Development Authority, paid tribute to “a group of mostly women and some men who are Greeley lovers and are really upset about this financing deal. I just want to say how grateful I am that this group got around and got these petitions done.”
